Emmanuelle Loyer is University Professor in contemporary history at Sciences Po Paris. Specializing in the cultural history of contemporary societies, her work has focused on artistic practices and policies (Le Théâtre citoyen de Jean Vilar, une utopie d'après-guerre, PUF, 1997 and, in collaboration with Antoine de Baecque, Le Festival d'Avignon, Gallimard, 2007, second edition 2016), and on exile and the phenomenon of transnational intellectuals (Paris à New York. Intellectuels et artistes en exil, 1940-1947, Grasset, 2005). She has published a highly-acclaimed biography of the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (Lévi-Strauss, Flammarion, 2015, recipient of the Prix Femina Essais, French Voices Award, Lévi-Strauss, Polity Press, 2018) and A Brève histoire culturelle de l'Europe (Flammarion, 2017).

More recently, she was interested in the relationship between literature and the social sciences and has published L’Impitoyable aujourd’hui (Flammarion, 2022). She was a participant in the play Jeanne Balibar. Les Historiennes, created in New York and played in the Paris festival d’Automne 2022.

She has been member of the Scientific Board of the National Library (BNF) for several years and recently elected to the Jury of Fémina Price.

She is a Nuffield College OxPo guest during this term to achieve some new research about history of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis.